Eminem vs. Juice at Scribble Jam (1997)

Posted on August 25, 2008
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In 1997, Eminem was relatively unknown. This video is about 15 minutes long so after the battle they sprinkle in some goodies. Some commentary by some artists from Anticon, Molemen, Rhymesayers, etc. You even get to see a clip of Duece Leader stage diving after losing to Juice. It’s even better because Duece is a pretty large guy, so the crowd cleared and didn’t catch him. He told me he broke his leg in the process.

Okay, now freestyle or written. A lot of battlers have seeded punchlines but freestyle around those attacks. Juice freestyled pretty heavily all the way through. Eminem took Juice’s name and tried to flip the letters into an acronym in his verse. He didn’t quite pull it off but Juice retaliated by taking Eminem’s Budweiser and hitting him with an acronym for the entire 9 letter word.

Eminem ended up using a lot of lines that appeared on his albums later on.

“you couldn’t sell two copies if you pressed a double album”

But, I guess you could make the argument of he used the lines after he initially freestyled that stuff. Either way, based on consistency I’d say they both freestyled, but Eminem was definitely pulling from a reserve of written punchlines.

Juice vs. Supernatural

Posted on August 21, 2008
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Part 1/2

Part 2/2

I figured I should start this blog off correctly, so I went with a classic. Supernatural vs. Juice is probably the definitive freestyle battle of the 90’s. It was hosted by Sway & Tech of The Wake Up Show. DJ Revolution is even on the wheels.

The battle was controversial because Supernatural asked for a beat change & swayed the crowd a bit, but who cares what the judges think. Judge for yourself who you think won.

The real issue is whether or not they both freestyled. My vote is this was a freestyled battle. Both artists went off the top of the dome in a beautiful display of skill. Enjoy!

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    With the extensive reach of programs like BET's "Freestyle Friday" and the saturation of mixtape "freestyles" a huge rift has been created. There is a large percentage of the population who do not know what a freestyle is. There's another chunk of the population who don't respect the art and think that spitting 16 pre-written bars and calling it a freestyle is acceptable. I think it's very problematic with the amount of youth being incorrectly introduced to freestyling. I felt obligated to attempt to create a platform where the art can be displayed and maturely discussed.

    - Mental Stamina

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